caribou + video marsh: odessa.

There are very few things I’m as excited about this Spring as Caribou’s upcoming “Swim”, scheduled to drop April 20. Caribou (and now drummer Brad Weber’s amazing, percussion-crazy side project Pick A Piper) is one of my favourite musical entities ever. I hesitate to call them a “band”, because I feel that they’re more than that. An evolution of instrumentation and style that puts them one step ahead.

The “Odessa” mp3 was released online a little while ago, but I’ve been waiting for the video before posting. Happy days are here, thanks to Video Marsh, with a hazy, soft, memory-filled video. The video is very open to interpretation, which I like; it’s evocative but extremely unspecific. To me, it’s like the feeling you get from a smell: undeniably strong but hard to necessarily put into words.

I’m sure Caribou (or any artist really) doesn’t want to be categorized or pegged to a nationality, but I love how Canadian this footage is. They’re not playing stereotypes but they’re not shying away from the winter-ness that we all intrinsically know.  It’s our secret handshake, and they’re offering a hand. Like looking at an old $2 bill; nobody would totally get it but us.

Via Stereogum

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02.19.10: jump jump dance dance, why?, kid sam, under byen.

jump jump dance dance + claire carré: show me the night.

why? + agustin carbonere: these hands.

kid sam + sherwin akbarzadeh: we’re mostly made of water.

Under Byen + Sidste Carsens: Alt Er Tabt.

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dmitry fyodorov + markus waltå: simcoe.

There’s something unsettlingly intimate yet oddly fascinating about watching strangers eat. Not every bodily function becomes social, and as far as bodily functions go the range of experiences possible within the act of eating are pretty unlimited. There aren’t too many different ways to breathe and blink and heartbeat and cell divide; eating, however, is almost infinite.

Infinite in its goodness, but also in its grotesqueness. In his video for Swedish electro-duo Dmitry Fyodorov’s “Simcoe”, the first track off their upcoming album “Shapeless”, SektorFilm director Markus Waltå whips up a rhythmic orgy of mundane food moments. The blankness, the shovelling, the swallowing without chewing. All of this, contemplating in close-up what each of these subjects are thinking (or trying not to think of) as they eat, builds slowly into the one thing that’s more satisfying to do with food than to eat it: to fight with it.

Via Antville

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alan poon + zeus: marching through your head.

Canadian Alan Poon directed one of my favourite music videos of all time, 2008′s incredible macro-masterpiece for Bowerbirds’ “In Our Talons.” That track was a fiery lament against man’s destruction of the natural world, and Poon created a perfect visual to accompany it: a twisted, contorted microscopic look at our affect on the Earth and everything else that isn’t us.

In his latest, for  Zeus’ “Marching Through Your Head”, he continues to examine stop-motion and hyper-realistic nature imagery to create a dreamy, sharp, saturated landscape. This time, with a more light-hearted track, he gets to be humorous and play with marching shoes that grow bushes which turn into Zeus who jam, appropriately, in a ruin on the top of a mountain.

Via Motionographer


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barclaycard + the mill: rollercoaster.

In 2008, BBH London created a refreshing and beautifully executed spot for Barclaycard called “Waterslide.” For 2010 they’re back at it, this time with a Nicolai Fuglsig-directed spot called “Rollercoaster.” If you’re wondering what it’s about, the title is pretty self-explanatory.

Created by VFXperts (I just made that term up, I’m not sure I like it, but I’ll keep it for now…) The Mill, the spot is sharp, tight, fearless, and seamless. But despite the technical radness, the best part is that it really does capture the joy behind the idea. It looks good enough to be real and so it feels good enough to be real.

And they were even nice enough to put up a killer making-of vid. I’m always blown away by the level of detail and skill that goes into making motion design of this calibre, and it’s totally worth checking out the process behind “Rollercoaster.”

Via Motionographer

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efterklang + kristian leth: modern drift.

I first discovered Danish experimental pop collective Efterklang when some of their music was featured in Jeremiah Zagar’s brilliant family autobiographical film “In A Dream.” Both the film and the music were some of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

Efterklang’s sound is ethereal and dreamy and huge. Luckily, it leaves itself so open to visual interpretation. Not a blank canvas, but a launching pad, ready to propel the song into whatever video the lucky director gets to imagine.

For “Modern Drift”, that director is Danish multi-media artist Kristian Leth. The song is gorgeous, and for it Leth has sewn together a stunning and simple vision of nature and life that is achingly lovely.

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